Erect golden-aster
is a leafy, many-branched perennial shrub growing to about 3' tall.
The alternate leaves are very wavy-margined, crowded, slightly whitish,
± stiff and ascending, and are linear-oblong to elliptic, mucronate-tipped
and covered with silky appressed hairs. There are few to many
radiate flowering heads in clusters at the tips of branchlets, with
many linear, hispid-hirsute phyllaries in several series and generally
less than ten yellow ray flowers and 20-40 yellow disk flowers. The
style branches of the disk flowers are papillate, and there is a well-developed
pappus of bristles often exceeding the corolla tube. The ovary
is covered with tiny silky hairs. There are several subspecies
of H. sessiliflora that grow in Southern California, and this
is a highly variable species. Ssp. fastigiata
is found on dry slopes, grasslands and sandy places in coastal sage
scrub and chaparral to an elevation of perhaps 7000' or so in the Transverse
Range, the central Peninsular Range and the San Jacintos, blooming from
July to November. This species used to be called Chrysopsis
villosa which gave rise to its older common name 'hairy golden-aster.'
The first three pictures were taken in the parking area at the
Mt. Baldy Ski Lift, and the last two along the Lower Clamshell Motorway
in the hills above Monrovia.